League Rules

Franchisers Keeper League · full rulebook

Franchisers League

League Basics

Entry Fee: $50.00 paid before Prospect Draft (August)

Prize Money:

10 team pool

8 team pool

Roster size: Roster sizes are 28 players, with the following breakdown:

Active rosters:

Your 15/5/2 roster is your active roster, where your points come from. The bench consists of players at any position and can be moved onto your active roster at the end of every week during the season. Your prospects can't be placed on your bench or active roster until signed to a contract, prior to start of season.

Scoring is goals plus assists for all skaters. Goalies at 2 for a win, minus 1 for a loss and bonus of 3 for a shutout. OT and shootout wins and losses count the same as regulation wins and losses.

Fluctuation Clause: In-season rosters may be expanded or reduced by no more than 2 spots, for an in-season minimum of 26 and maximum of 30. This fluctuation clause will affect the bench, as all GMs are required to keep their active rosters filled with the best players available each week.

Auction Day

All teams start the auction with $300, less contracts and farm team costs. All teams must bring their roster up to 28 players.

ESPN's Pool Manager places the selection order randomly. The first GM in order will nominate a player for a minimum of $1 bid. Note: players who are eligible for the Calder trophy may not be selected in the auction.

(ESPN auction notes: When 'keepers' are enabled, GMs are able to set player values. This is important for the auction and needs to be done before the auction so that values are accurate during bidding. Because our pool uniquely allows for +2 players in-season, our bench size is increased and must be accounted for during the auction. We also have prospects which are not part of our ESPN rosters, but carry cap value that must be accounted for. As such - each team will need to add two "dud" players prior to the auction, which will be dropped immediately after. These duds should be prospects or otherwise un-chooseable players, and their player values will be assigned the total of your current prospect values. This way our unique pool Cap calculations will be accurately aligned to the ESPN auction system.)

Bidding for a player, once nominated, proceeds as a free for all, with a preset time limit by the Commish (usually 30 secs) counted down by the system. In the final ten seconds any new bid will add extra seconds to the countdown to ensure bidding wars may continue. Once purchased by the highest bidder, that player's price is deducted from the team's cash that purchased him. We then proceed, in order, with the next nomination: repeating the above process until all rosters are full.

Bidding in increments of one dollar minimum. Can't bid on a player if you can't afford to pay him or if your bench is full. *It is the responsibility of each GM to know their remaining cash total and restrain from bidding when bidding exceeds their available cash. Bidding up or even winning when in a cash deficit skews the process and requires a timely reset.

Auction dollars become null and void once your 28th roster spot is filled. Future cash cannot be traded during the auction. Once a team selects its 28th player, they may re-enter the auction by trading away a player, but only re-enter with the cash that was freed up by the player's salary. No team can exceed 28 players on their roster until the auction is complete.

After the auction is completed, teams will be given a deadline to submit their contracts and active roster to the Slack channel.

Contracts

Contracts can be signed for up to three years, but minimum one year. Contract price is the same as the auction price for the duration of the contract.

Each team is allowed a total of three 4-year term contracts per season. Stipulations of a 4-yr contract are: Contract cannot be bought out; Contract cannot be traded until final year; Contract does not qualify for RFA at its conclusion.

Contracts may be bought out for the greater of $15 or half of the player's salary. Dollar values will be rounded up. A buyout is for players signed to long-term contracts that you don't want on your team anymore. You do not pay the player's salary, but pay the buyout amount and the player goes back into the auction.

Prospect Draft

Every season we will hold a prospect draft before RFA's or the auction.

The draft will be two rounds. Draft order will be determined by a separate lottery for both rounds, to help deter tanking for first pick. For fun, we use a poker table draw to determine the random draw, basing our ballot distribution on a deck of cards (52). (Based on an 8 team league, the top 3 finishers are not in the lottery for the first five picks.)

To be eligible as a prospect, a player must be drafted or signed as a free agent by an NHL team and must qualify for the Calder trophy.

Calder Trophy eligibility: A player cannot have played more than 25 games in any single season, nor in six or more games in each of any two preceding seasons. Also, a player can be no older than 26 before Sept. 15 of the year he's eligible.

There is no cross-over, a player is either Calder eligible and available in the prospect draft or not Calder eligible and available in the auction.

Farm team costs are $1 per year as a prospect in the league, increasing incrementally ($1/yr 1, $2/yr 2, etc).

Once a prospect has played 50 NHL games, or a total of 35 games in two consecutive seasons, he must be signed to a contract or released prior to the auction of the upcoming season. You may keep a player as a prospect as long as you wish (provided they don't meet the games played maximum).

Before you are able to bring your prospect onto your active roster or bench, you must sign him to a contract. The cost structure is:

YearsPrice
1$1
2$3
3$5

These costs are a flat rate paid over the length of the contract. A three year deal costs $5 per season for three years. Prospects are not eligible for the 4yr Contract Clause.

Roster Moves

We use the ESPN Fantasy Hockey online system. The rosters are set weekly, and are locked in every Monday at the first scheduled game time on the NHL schedule. It is the GM responsibility to set and save their active roster for each week.

Rosters are monitored. It is the GM responsibility to keep the active roster filled weekly, and to make moves to ice the best active roster possible. Leaving injured players, for example, in active spots can be seen as an effort to tank, and will receive warnings, potentially a fine. (covered in 'Fines')

Trades

Trade deadline is aligned with the NHL deadline each season.

During the season teams may exchange any combination of players, future auction cash, prospects and prospect picks.

Your salary cap may go over $300 during the season by a maximum of $10, as long as your contracts that are signed through the next season aren't over $300 (less one dollar per empty roster spot).

Your salary cap floor is $240. Every GM is expected to keep a competitive roster, starting with a minimum investment of $240 for the 28 spots filled. This is a floor and exists in-season without exceptions. Any trades which would take a roster below the floor will be voided.

From the conclusion of the auction until the trading deadline, teams may not trade away more than $20 in future cash. This is a net cap, so if you trade $10 to acquire a player, then receive $5 for a player, your cap amount is $5.

It is mandatory that RFA rights be included when a player is traded. Trading future rights to a player or trading a player but keeping his RFA rights is prohibited.

"Future Considerations" is not a tradeable asset.

No deals may take place where a player who is currently under contract is loaned to another team or promised to another team in the future.

Any trade may be overruled by an appeal to the commissioner and the commissioner putting the trade to a vote. In the case of a vote the GM's not involved in the trade will vote yes or no on whether the trade should take place. Please note this is only in extreme circumstances and is meant as a deterrent to fire-sales or pool-throwing, not as a safety net for poor deals.

Prospect Picks can only be traded for future seasons that have been paid for in advance by the GMs involved. For example, a 2022 first round pick cannot be traded unless the GM trading that pick has paid their entry fees up and through the 2022-23 season.

Trades between GMs require 24 hrs to clear on ESPN, giving opportunity for the commish and other GMs to see and approve, so plan accordingly.

Restricted Free Agency

Any player who was signed to a one year contract or has come to the end of his contract is eligible for RFA. This phase will take place several weeks before the auction. All GMs may place bids on up to seven RFAs. The minimum bid on a player is his current price. A bid must be accompanied by a one or two year offer. A list will be compiled and published of the bids, ranking them for each player from highest to lowest. Dollar value on the bid will determine the ranking; ex, a $14 two year bid is beaten by a $15 one year bid. However, the years will break ties for bids of equal dollar value. If two identical offers are made, the GM who finished lower in the standings the previous season acts first.

The first place team GM will go first (actually a disadvantage) and for all his bids that were the highest for any given player he will have the option to proceed with the official bid on the player or remove his bid. If he chooses to remove his bid, the second highest bidder becomes the top bidder. All bids he chooses to proceed with will be presented to the current owners of those players, in the order he chooses. The GM may submit one offer, determine the outcome, then decide whether or not he wants to proceed with his next offer or retract the bid. The reason for this is that a team may be looking for one goalie and place offers on four goalies. He only wants to sign one, so will make offers until he gets one, then retract all other offers.

If an offer is presented to a GM, he has two choices: give up the player, or pay the price offered to the player. If the GM matches the offer, he can sign him to the number of years specified in the offer or increase the deal up to a maximum of two years. The matching GM may only increase the number of years, not decrease.

Once the first GM has finished retracting bids, placing bids and had all his offers matched or declined, we move to all the 2nd place GM's top bids. The process continues until we reach the last place GM, then we go back to the first place GM who may now have some new top bids due to other GMs retracting their offers. The cycle continues until any player with a bid on him has either had an offer made or has had all preliminary bids retracted.

No trades or agreements involving RFA actions at any time. No trades or discussion of trades or bids during RFA. No trades of any kind during this period. The ban will start when an email is sent to all GM's and will conclude with the completion of RFA. Discussion includes, but is not limited to: suggestions of which players/teams/amounts to bid or to bid on or offering advice on any RFA decision to another GM.

The intent of the rule is to preserve the function of RFA. That being, one GM deciding for himself the appropriate action for his own team in all RFA decisions. One team can no longer pursue their agenda through the actions of another team. Any violation of this is up to the discretion of the commish.

Contract Extensions

If a player makes it through free agency and hasn't had any offers made on him, he may be signed to a contract extension. Contract extensions are for one or two years. Extension price is the same as original auction price.

After the completion of this one-time extension (or RFA signing), the player automatically returns to the auction pool (UFA).

Deadlines and Penalties

There are a series of deadlines for participation in the pool, and it is crucial for full participation for each GM, and alignment to the deadlines, to keep the pool running smoothly, and respecting the time commitment of each fellow GM. As such, there are possible penalties which can be imposed as a result of missing the deadlines.

RFA Blind Bids — penalty of no bids allowed.

RFA Tampering — Violation of RFA discussion/trade rule. No bids allowed by the offending GM.

Extensions, Prospects & Buyouts — this is a flexible time period, not a set deadline, carried out on the banterboard. Must be declared during allotted time. If neglected by GM, no declarations will be taken/accepted.

Contracts and Opening Roster — contracts must be declared by a set date prior to opening of season. If a GM fails to declare by this date, it will result in a loss of a draft pick in the following season, the lowest pick of whatever is available.

Trade Deadline — the deadline aligns with the NHL and is set by the ESPN roster system. As such, trades must be submitted and pass the review period in order to proceed.

Keeping Active Roster up to date — This is a continually changing standard and has been very subjective to the various versions of the pool. At one time there was a penalty for not keeping rosters as healthy and optimal weekly. Currently, the common voice is that "losing" is just another keeper-league strategy. Trying to find a middle ground that isn't just based on one person's preference is challenging. So — as the GM of the pool I am going to suggest my middle ground is this:

Just as those trying to win do so by using the active assets — the most optimal active lineup possible — I am expecting all teams to follow this standard, even if you prefer to finish last. This way, finishing last as a strategy still has to come through an equally shared tactic with the rest of the league, by icing your optimal lineup. If your optimal lineup performs the worst, then you achieve your goal.

This way we don't introduce in-equal tactics that might require a new set of rules and considerations, such as drafting injured players, putting everyone on the bench all year, etc. It's a slippery slope and this is the way I prefer to manage it. If a GM, for example, chooses to dress a healthy Pat Maroon instead of a healthy Mitch Marner, that's their choice. But an injured Pat Maroon can't stay in the lineup if a healthy Mitch Marner is available. Hopefully that's understood.